Friday, June 14, 2013

MAK/Museum fur angewandt Kunst/Vienna

The Museum for Applied Arts is vast. I only managed about half of it before giving up quite overwhelmed. The opening parts is a bizarre repository of artifacts - more auction house preview than museum.

Lots of assorted Habsburgs looking variously bemused.

Poor Marie Wilt. Obviously posing for a bust not her favorite occupation.

There they all are (including Ludwig Von B) waiting and waiting.

Lots and lots of Sissy - who had alarming amounts of hair.

Places to sit...

and lots of a favored shade of green.

The desk of a melancholy camper - and you can't even see the paperweight of the dead sparrow.

Such pretty china for tea.

A seance of needlepointed chairs...

one of a pair of gilded vases. I could go on. I've decided that there is only so much I can take in at one time. A bit like eating chocolate cake. All too wonderful - and then there simply isn't room for anything else.

About NY- It's really a small town! Yesterday my daughter who is studying in Connecticut met my friend who lives in Puerto Rico and Virginia ran into each other in front of a museum! What a surprise. My daughter was there for the day and my friend was just there at NYU for a week!

I love the energy of NY. I have a confession to make- I've watched "You Got Mail" many times and it always makes me want to walk through the streets of NY enjoying the small town feeling of the big city! (That small town description is a theme of the movie, do you remember?) Thanks for sharing your view of the MAK.

I felt exactly the same way at the Vatican. After awhile, I caught myself thinking, "Ho hum, just another huge room filled with amazing sculptures, another hall painted with frescoes by famous men, another incredible bunch of artifacts." Until I stepped in to the Sistine Chapel. That was like taking a bite of the world's best dark chocolate after eating a bag of Hershey's kisses. Next time, I think I'll simply make a beeline for the Sistine Chapel and stay there.Maybe that sad camper got lost at the MAK and couldn't find his way out.

There is certainly a lot to process! Loved your descriptive words, like that "seance of needlepointed chairs" and Sissy's "alarming amounts of hair" (of which she was extremely proud, I read in a bio about her once). You have reminded me of why I tend to drift rather quickly through museums, usually two rooms ahead of the rest of the group, my visual self just can't take it all in and flits from one object to the next waiting for that special one that will make me stop and ponder, which most often is among "the decorative arts." The things people used in their everyday lives . . .

I am with you all the way here Elizabeth. If I go to the National Gallery in London I usually choose one painter I wish to see and go and sit in that 'room' and really look at the paintings - otherwise I get thoroughly confused and sick of the whole thing. The trouble is that when one is abroad one feels the necessity to do it all.